MARYVILLE, Tenn. — Blount Memorial Hospital emergency room doctor Daniel Hunter is a familiar face to patients.
He's been with the hospital for a decade but said the overcrowding at the emergency room was particularly bad this past Christmas.
Ten days after that, on Jan. 5, Blount Memorial opened an annex with an additional ten rooms to serve emergency room patients. These rooms are for people who've been admitted to the hospital but are waiting for a room assignment.
Dr. Hunter said Christmas Day is typically a light day at the hospital, but instead, 155 patients came to Blount Memorial's emergency departments, many with the flu and many who ended up admitted.
"It started to back up in the hospital, we ran out of beds upstairs," Dr. Hunter said. "We had some staffing issues and it started to back up into the emergency department."
The solution for the backup was already at the hospital and workers were able to transform an unused space into the new emergency annex.
Emergency room employees were thrilled when they heard about the additional beds that were being added to the department, Dr. Hunter said.
"It was an all-in, and for us in the ER, it made a huge difference," he said. "It's not a fun working environment for us either. We don't want our patients to be waiting. We don't want it, it's not good for either of us if they've waited three hours to see me."
Dr. Hunter said patient feedback has been good.
"Blount Memorial is innovative," he said. "We've been working on trying to get our ER patient experience up, meaning your experience at our emergency department is going to be better... if you've not been to Blount Memorial in a long time, I'd try it out."
Blount Memorial's Senior Director of Nursing Alisha Licata said she's proud of how quickly the hospital worked to solve the problem of crowding.
She said the emergency department at Blount Memorial has 27 rooms and serves an average of 121 people per day, but those numbers can surge at any time. The new annex allows them to see more patients, in a more timely manner.
"The rooms are private," she said. "They're comfortable. And it's a quiet location (for patients) to get their treatment. And also family members can be with their loved ones during their care."